


One Life and Beyond

by isuilde



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, also it says major character death but i swear this has happy ending all around, angels & demons AU, bullshitting so many things that needed researches, depiction of blood, idek anymore i have given up life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 14:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3613038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isuilde/pseuds/isuilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sousuke summons a red-haired demon who dates a green-eyed angel who's named by Haruka.</p><p>Somewhere along the way, there's romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Life and Beyond

**Author's Note:**

> I don't fucking know. /laughs nervously
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY WAIFU [buttleronduty!](http://buttleronduty.tumblr.com/)!!!! Thank you for being so fabulous and sweet and I'm sorry I'm late, I told myself "I won't say happy birthday until I finish this shit" and look how late I am. I'm really sorry for being a horrible husbando but please don't divorce me.
> 
> This has a happy ending. I promise.

Humans have such weird notions about angels and demons.

He’s seen stories and paintings, songs and poems, words and colors and shapes of ephemeral beings with wings, trying to depict angels and demons and the contradiction that separates them. Angels, blond hairs and white fluttering robes with majestic wings that radiate light. Demons, all black and mostly scantily clad, fangs peeking in a taunting smirk, a personification of darkness that must be avoided at all cost.

The cover of the children picture book, splattered with blood and half-crushed by metal, is of that kind of angels and demons, too.

He shakes his head as he helps the confused little girl to her feet—up and afloat they go. “Hello,” he begins, his best smile a perfect curve on his lips. “Will you hear me out for a second?”

The little girl, barely eight, stares wide-eyed at him. “You’re an angel,” she breathes, in such barely veiled excitement that he feels bad to shatter that. “You have huge wings!”

He chuckles, lets his wings bend forward to shelter the girl from the sight of the wrecked bus, tainted red with blood and bodies trapped under metals and glass. “I am. I’m here to pick you up and send you to Heaven.”

Just like that, and the wide-eyed amazement vanishes. “Wh—“

“Listen to me carefully, alright?” It never gets easier, he thinks, no matter how long he’s done this job. No matter how old the people assigned to him, no matter how easy it is later to send them to the heaven. “You rode the bus to the beach, and the bus got in an accident. You died in the accident.”

She pales, even more as the bright summer sun rays goes through her, and moves as if she’s going to look back down. “I—“

“Don’t look down,” he urges, grasps her hands tightly. “Please. It’s okay. You’ve been a good girl, and you’ll be going to Heaven because you’ve been good, alright?  It’s going to be great! Your mother and father will be there, too, so there’s nothing you should worry about.” He nudges her forward, points her towards the couple he’d picked up earlier, now sitting calmly on the roof of a house. “See?”

The mother waves cheerfully. He lets the little girl in his arms go, lets her find her family back, and watches the familiar sight of wings sprouting from their backs—white and majestic like an angel’s, glittering under the summer sun, blinding him for a moment. He blinks, catches a bright smile sent his way from the little girl amongst the light, and manages to give a wave before the three vanish from sight.

The wings would take them to Heaven, he thinks, relieved that his job is done without a hitch. There’s still more to go, though. Loads more. So he takes out the list of names he’s given, carefully reviews each and every name that died in the bus accident that he needs to send to the Heaven even as he floats back down to the accident site.

The wreckage is not a pretty sight, but a job is a job, even though he never remembers how long he’s been doing this, or even when he started doing this.

** \-----o0o----- **

Another day, another list. Today, he sends off a pretty young woman who’s been sick in bed for a long time, a red scarf snug around her neck and a sunflower smile on her lips as he guides her away from her body.

“What’s your name?” she asks, just as the wings on her back unfold in a flurry of feathers, and he pauses to stare at her for a long moment, almost hopeful. Maybe today is  _the day_ . Maybe he’d finally—

"I don’t—“

The girl vanishes into a rain of tiny lights glittering brightly against the blue sky.

He sighs dejectedly. Not today either, it seems. Oh, he wishes he’d have a name. Angels are not given names—they’re given wings capable of granting a miracle, once, the same wings that pure souls have, the same wings that sends them up to heaven, the same wings that makes the impossible possible, only at the cost of your existence.

But humans can give them names.

He wonders, sometimes, if it’s the reason Angels are given the task to send pure souls to heaven. To search for a human soul that would pause for a while and give them a name. Because that’s certainly what he’s doing now—it sounds too simple, perhaps, that his dream is simply to have a name, but considering it’s no easy feat, he thinks it’s not something that should be laughed at.

Rin certainly never laughs at it.

** \-----o0o------ **

“Please,” the young boy begs, and he exchanges glances with Chigusa, who looks extremely exhausted. Even her wings seem to be sagging. “Please, please, please, let’s watch the game at Koshien? Pleeeaaase?”

“Please go to Heaven already, you’ve named like ten other unfinished business.” Chigusa whines. The kid pouts at her, and she sighs. “Fine, alright. Are you sure this is your last regret?”

“It is! I promise!” the young boy chirps, but then he pauses, eyebrows knitted. “But I also want to visit Alpen mountains like in those picture books—“

Chigusa groans. “This kid is going to be the death of me,” she mock-whispers to him, and he laughs, shakes his head fondly at the kid still trying to describe the picture books he owned when he was still alive. He ruffles the young boy’s hair, then bends forward to look at him closely.

“You only have one last chance,” he tells the young boy, whose face immediately falls. “But Chigusa will help you, alright? You can’t keep dragging her around, though, she still has a lot of work to do, a lot of people to help. And if you don’t tell her your real regret, we can’t help you grow wings and you can’t go to Heaven without the wings.”

The young boy’s lips quiver. “I’m—“

Chigusa’s wings fold around the young boy, as she takes his hand, gently. “I’ll take you to Koshien,” she says, cheerful as the bright summer sun. “We’ll watch a game, and then you can tell me what your real regret is, how about that?”

He smiles as Chigusa leads the young boy away. A job is a job, but helping these souls ascend to heaven isn’t just a matter of a job. It’s a matter of heart as well—to watch them finally let go of their final regret, to watch their last grateful smile as their wings unfold, to watch them swallowed gently by the light and vanish.

Wherever Heaven is, he thinks as he takes another look at today’s list of names, he hopes those souls are happy.

** \-----o0o----- **

He stumbles on Rin circling around a housewife lazily, eyes critical as the woman whimpers in fear. Rin’s wings are spread out wide, the color of night a canopy above the woman’s head, completely obscuring the merciless summer sun.

“Infidelity,” Rin says in a pointed tone. “Murder of the first husband. Attempts to kill the second. Kicking out your parents from the house. Greed. Your life is made of so much lies.” He pauses before the woman, sharp teeth flashing in a wide grin. “To Hell you go.”

“No!” The woman shrieks. “There must be a mistake—“

Rin reaches out, fingers resting almost too gently on the woman’s forehead. “Goodbye.”

Just like that, and the woman vanishes, leaving a trail of black smoke behind. Rin straightens, his spread wings curling back elegantly as he turns, this time with a friendly grin.

“Hey,” Rin says to him, his grin settling into a soft smile. “It’s you.”

** \-----o0o----- **

He doesn’t remember when exactly they began to hang out together.

Humans would probably find it baffling, he wonders, that angels and demons could be best buddies. They always depict demons as the fearsome creatures with the foulest intention, contrasting them to the angels, when in reality, the only difference is that while angels get to send people to Heaven, demons send people to Hell. Sure, demons still have those night-like wings, but he wonders what the human souls think, when they see Rin with his hair and eyes that blaze like flames.

Rin is bright. Even brighter than some angels he’d known. AnD he still feels extremely lucky, most of the time, whenever Rin reaches out and fingers lightly skitter on the line of his jaw, before resting on his cheek gently and pulls him forward for a kiss.

He hums, feels Rin’s grin grow against his lips, before letting go with a soft chuckle. “Are you finished for today?”

“That was my last one,” Rin shrugs, his list of names vanishing from his side with a carefree wave. There’s a slightly hopeful look in his eyes as their eyes meet, and the angel could hear the question even before Rin speaks. “Any luck today?”

His smile wavers. “Mmm. Not yet.”

Rin’s eyes soften. “There’s always another day. Or even today—you’re not finished with today’s list, are you?” The grin pulling the corners of Rin’s lips is familiar, so full of confidence and trust. “I’ll even go with you. I have nothing to do today, anyway.”

He lets Rin hook a finger on the hollow of his hip, tries to ignore the way his heart stutters. “You don’t have to, though. Didn’t you say there’s a concert you wanted to watch today?” Nonetheless, he conjures up his list of the deads for today anyway, lets Rin rest his chin on his left shoulder as he reads the list. “I have three left, but the last one would happen in the late evening—“

Rin makes a small, “oh,” and tenses ever so slightly—if it weren’t for their bodies pressing close, he would have not noticed.

“Rin?”

Rin is silent for a long, long moment; eyes glued to the list hovering before the both of them, the lines on his face darkening in sadness.

“I know him,” Rin says, almost too softly. “I know this boy.”

A finger reaches out, and he watches as it taps against the floating paper, right on the name:  _Nanase Haruka_ .

** \------o0o----- **

The circle is rather sloppy, and one of the candles is already so short that the small flame threatens to die in the midst of the ritual. By all means, the summon ritual shouldn’t have worked—the boy standing before him didn’t even pronounce the spell correctly—but the odd thing is, it did  _work_ .

Rin eyes the boy in interest—rough black hair and strong jaw, furrowed eyebrows knitting above determined teal eyes, broad shoulders and straight back that reminds him a little of a certain unnamed angel with a similar physique. He breaks into a grin, suddenly remembering that the summon ritual shouldn’t have worked, and the fact that it worked despite the poor ritual execution meant the boy’s wish must have been very strong.

“You’ve got some nerve, trying to summon a demon,” his wings unfurled, a rush of black feathers filling the dimmed room, blocking the flickering candle lights completely. Under the flimsy lights, the boy’s face changes, eyes widening and breath catching, and Rin flashes his teeth sharply, like a predator that’s found his prey. “This isn’t a game, so you’d better know what you’re doing.”

Amazement vanishes from the boy’s face as quick as it comes, replaced by firm determination as he stares up at Rin defiantly. “I have a wish.”

“And I’ll grant it at the cost of your soul.” Rin’s eyes narrow. “What kind of wish do you have, that you won’t mind selling your soul to a demon and going straight to hell after you die?”

The boy’s lips thin. For a second, he looks like he’s about to falter. But then he takes a deep dreath, and when he speaks, his voice rings clear with conviction a seventeen year-old boy shouldn’t have.

“My name is Yamazaki Sousuke,” he says. “I wish to know when I would die.”

** \-----o0o----- **

“Yamazaki.”

He isn’t quite sure what it is about Nanase that bugs him so much. Maybe it’s the quiet and silence he holds, broken only by a few words once in a while. Maybe it’s the languid way he moves with, or the bland look he regards the world with except when it comes to water, mackerel, and their school mascot. Maybe it’s his swimming, so fluid and elegant, almost like he belongs in the embrace of water, almost like he lives to be in the water.

Maybe it’s the fact that Nanase still has  _everything_ , and yet he doesn’t ever break into a run.

“You left your notes in the clubroom.”

A notebook is placed on the desk, the four characters forming his name written on the cover, and Sousuke looks up at Nanase impassively. “There’s no morning practice today. You went into the pool, didn’t you.”

Nanase just levels his stare with an equally bland look at the not-question before casually shrugging and turning around to return to his seat. Sousuke lets his eyes linger on Nanase’s back, before turning away and takes the notebook Nanase left. It’s his English book—he remembers pulling it out of his bag yesterday after practice, because Nakagawa wanted to copy his notes, and he must have forgotten to put it back in afterwards.

Behind him, floating inches above a sleeping Minami’s head, Rin snorts. “If you don’t tone down the staring, the whole world is going to know that you have a crush on him.”

“I don’t.” Sousuke says, but it lacks the bite he intended, and Rin just pats him on the head.

“What’s his name again?” Rin wonders. “Nanase something—that sounds girly, right?”

“This coming from a demon with a girly name.” Sousuke counters, and gets a scowl.

“Shut up.”

** \------o0o----- **

He used to have dreams, once. Of holding a gold medal and standing on the highest platform as the crowds’s cheer echoes above his head, deafening. Of swimming in a pool and racing people with different skin and hair colors, throwing challenging grins in languages he might not understand. Of clutching the whole world in his fist and the bubbling pride of  _victory_ .

It’s funny how a simple check-up to hospital could change your whole life.

So he stares up at the demon, whose hair the color of the flames and wings the color of midnight, because what else could he lose?

“I wish to know when I would die.”

The demon makes a face. “Aren’t you too young still for that question?” He leans forward, dangerously close, and Sousuke steels himself not to step back. “I can grant any wish in exchange for your soul, you know. You can even conquer the whole world.” He pauses, grins like a shark. “Well, except bringing someone back to life. Or making someone live longer. It’s against the rules.”

"I don’t need that,” Sousuke answers, because he might not seem like it, but he knows better than to ask for a life. That’s not how the world works. “I just need to know when exactly I’d die.”

The demon eyes him curiously. “Why?”

Sousuke stares him down for a long time. The words, when they come out, still graze bitterly against his throat, almost too painfully.

“The doctors say I might have only a year left.”

Cancer. To him, it’s the very definition of injustice.

“I figured I might as well know when, exactly.”

The demon steps back; Sousuke thinks he sees pity flashing across red eyes, before vanishing in an instant and replaced with a hard look instead. It disappears too, in a moment, and a sly grin settles on the demon’s face. “So you’d know how to spend the rest of your time to the fullest, huh.”

Sousuke’s lips twitch up. “You’re unexpectedly sentimental for a demon.”

“You humans have the weirdest notions about demons,” the wings fold back slowly, despite the demon’s feet still hovering inches above the floor. “Fine then. By your wish, in exchange for your soul, Yamazaki Sousuke.”

The wind, freezing and cutting, blasts Sousuke in the face. He grits his teeth, unable to breathe, as it picks up, whirling up high in the center of the room. Dark feathers scatter; flutter round, and for a second the darkness grows deeper, thicker, more threatening.

“You’ll die in the last week of August, next year.”

** \-----o0o--- **

“Rin, are you okay?”

Wide white wings, concerned green eyes. Soft brown hair intimately ruffled by the wind. Rin reaches out, brushes the tips of his fingers against long eyelashes that flutter close, and leans close to rest their foreheads together.

The angel makes a soft humming noise. “I heard a human summoned you.”

“Yeah.” Beautiful, pretty angels, with their pure white wings that shines under the sun. Unnamed beings who has to wait for humans to name them, if they’re ever lucky. Beautiful angels, who never has to deal with humans willing to sell their souls, in exchange for dubious request that sometimes hurts to grant. “I’m okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Rin stares long into green eyes, silent but contemplative, but then he folds his wings and settles down.

“There’s this boy, you see…”

** \-----o0o----- **

Sousuke stares at Nanase’s lunch box, which contains nothing but rice and umeboshi and mackerel, and remembers that Nanase brought the same exact thing to lunch yesterday.

“Have you ever heard of variety?”

Nanase throws him a sharp glare. “Don’t disrespect the mackerel.” ousuke just stares at him some more, before sitting down three steps away from his classmate with his own tuna sandwich and fruit milk. “You are so weird.”

The rooftop is full of students at this time of the day—it’s one of the school’s popular lunch spot, and Sousuke’s been eating lunch there since his first day of school. He doesn’t remember when Nanase started coming to the rooftop, too, but students of the same class or club tend to flock together and dominate different corners of the roof, and it just so happens that he and Nanase are both in the swimming club (and the same class, now). He supposes it’s why they always automatically sit rather close to each other and eat lunch in relatively comfortable silence.

“Coach is sending me out for 100m freestyle.”

Sousuke tries not to grip his carton of fruit milk too hard. “Hn.”

“I refused.”

There’s a sharp burst of anger that licks up his throat. “Oh,” he snaps, a bit too sharply. “Wasting your talent, I see.”

Nanase turns to him, meets his eyes squarely. “You backed off from signing up for the 100m butterfly, too.”

“That’s—“ different, he wants to say, but it would raise even more questions, and Sousuke hates the pity that usually entails those questions. “I had my reasons.”

Nanase turns away, focusing back to his mackerel. “Same here.”

No, Sousuke wants to say, wants to snap—because Nanase has everything Sousuke’s always wished for: talents, chances, a healthy body, and most importantly, he is not dying in a mere year. No, it’s not the same, because Sousuke had wanted to sign up, had been excited to sign up for the race; but what’s the use, anyway? Even if he wins, it’s not like he’s going to survive the year. It’s not like he’s going to be able to respond to any scouts coming for him. It’s not like his dream matters anymore.

No, it’s not the same. Not with Nanase, because Nanase has everything Sousuke wants and can’t get, and yet, Nanase doesn’t seem inclined to even move.

“You’re the fastest among us,” Sousuke grits out, puts down the carton of fruit milk and finishes the last bite of his sandwich, crumpling the plastic in his hands. It makes a loud, angry noise in his fist, and Sousuke throws it at the garbage can. He misses. He doesn’t care. “You should let the Coach sign you up.”

Nanase doesn’t say anything for a long time. Sousuke watches him close his lunch box—only half eaten—and gathers his things, before rising to his feet and steps away from Sousuke, brisk if a bit tensed.

“Why did you back off the butterfly race?”

Sousuke turns away. “That’s none of your business.”

Nanase steps towards the garbage can and bends down, picking up the crumpled plastic Sousuke had thrown and lobs it easily into the can. “I’m going back first.”

Good riddance, Sousuke thinks almost desperately, as he watches Nanase walks away. Except the thought only fuels the hot flare burning in his chest, and he doesn’t know whether it burns for Nanase or for himself.

** \-----o0o----- **

Rin hangs around.

Sousuke doesn’t bother asking why—it’s not like the demon hovers around and comments on everything that he does. Mostly Rin just floats somewhere in the corner of the classroom and points out Sousuke’s mistakes in English, or randomly makes people’s stationaries fall off tables, or sitting on the windowsill and watches people outside. Sometimes he goes away for work, too (apparently demons don’t eat people’s souls, they actually send them to Hell), but mostly Rin just follows him around and watches him live his life—which Sousuke thinks has got to be boring.

It’s somehow nice, though, to have someone hanging around, even if he  _is_ a demon.

His life continues rather normally and uneventful. He attends the swimming club when he’s sure he isn’t going to collapse, he goes to school and skips P.E if he doesn’t feel well enough. He does his homework, he goes for check-ups at the hospital, he doesn’t say anything to the baseless rumors echoing in the hallways—“Isn’t Yamazaki a delinquent?”, and “I thought he was gonna be the next captain of the swimming club,” and “I wonder what changed,” and “I heard he skips classes and just gets into fights.”

Rin eyes those people disdainfully like he’s personally offended on Sousuke’s behalf. “Humans,” he says, sharp and disgusted, and throws an incredulous look at Sousuke. “You should get mad at them sometimes.”

“Too much work,” Sousuke answers. “I need energy to navigate my way through the school.”

He doesn’t say that rumors are better than pity, doesn’t say that he much prefers the mistaken title of a delinquent compared to the pitiful kid might not live for another year. He doesn’t say it, and Rin doesn’t say anything else about it either, except the next day everyone who so much as breathe a word about Sousuke being a delinquent mysteriously gets their shoes and notes mixed up, and Rin has this smug look on his face for the rest of the day.

Nanase, whose shoes and notes are safe, finds him at lunch and gives him a small box containing handmade croquettes. “You look thinner,” he says with no preamble, and doesn’t say anything for the rest of the break. Sousuke stares at Nanase’s rice-and-mackerel lunch for a long time, before getting up and buys another carton of fruit milk from the vending machine to give to Nanase.

Rin steals two of the croquettes and eats only one of them.

** \-----o0o----- **

When he attends the swimming club later, Nanase’s white towel mysteriously ends up in his locker and Rin is nowhere to be found. Sousuke sighs, resists the silly urge in the back of his mind to bury his face in the towel and have a good long sniff of Nanase’s scent, and turns around. “Oi, Nanase—“

Nanase, with Sousuke’s familiar blue towel wrapped snug around his hips, spares him a glance. “Oh,” he says at the towel Sousuke is holding, completely unphased. “That’s my towel.”

“And that’s mine.” Sousuke deadpans, nods at the towel Nanase is wearing. The boy, though, only waves a hand dismissively, and continues his track towards the shower.

“Wash it before you return it.”

Sousuke does have a good long sniff of Nanase’s scent, later. In the midst of a very, very cold shower.

** \-----o0o----- **

Then, on a hot day in the middle of June, for the first time since he got diagnosed with the cancer, Sousuke collapses.

He’s only just pulls himself out of the pool, feeling that he might have made a mistake by attending club practice, and then the world spins and blurs and he hears Nanase calling his name sharply, and then—

He’s drowning.

And everything goes dark.

** \-----o0o----- **

Rin is talking quietly to someone when he wakes up to the white, sterile walls of the hospital.

That’s new, he thinks. He doesn’t even know that Rin has friends. There’s no one else in the room—it’s almost too quiet, save for ticking clock on the wall that says it’s almost two in the morning. He blinks his eyes open, waits for the world to stop spinning and blurring, and then Rin’s face comes into view.

“Took your time, idiot.”

Sousuke wants to laugh because really, Rin is going to have his soul in the end. That the demon actually looks worried is hilarious. He’s too tired to to laugh, though, so he just gazes around as best as he could, taking in the white walls and white curtains, breathing in the sterile smell that spells out medicines. No one else is in the room, except his mom, who’s curled up asleep on the corner of the room, exhaustion clear in the lines of her face.

“I thought,” he croaks, and tries to clear his throat. It only makes it hurt even more. “You were talking to someone.”

“Oh,” Rin says, turning to a corner where Sousuke can’t see anything. “Yeah, it’s my friend. Well, I guess in human terms he’d be my boyfriend, but—“ he breaks off, pausing, turning away like he’s listening to something, and Sousuke’s eyebrows knit because Rin has a boyfriend. “Uh. Is it a good idea?”

Sousuke is just so confused. “What is,” he begins, but then realizes that Rin is talking to that empty corner of the room—except after a few blinks the corner isn’t empty anymore, and instead there’s a pair of huge white wings tucked neatly behind a tall, broad-shouldered figure, with droopy green eyes that crinkle with a smile and unruly mop of brown hair.

Sousuke gapes.

“Hello, Yamazaki-kun,” the man—angel, Sousuke’s mind supplies—says, closing the distance between the corner and falls to Rin’s side almost too easily. “Thank you for the croquette—though I guess Rin kind of stole it from you, huh? It’s nice to finally meet you. Rin was really worried about you.”

“I was  _not_ ,” Rin grumbles, but Sousuke doesn’t listen to him for once.

“Who are you,” he breathes, because the contrast of white and black feathers swirling around him is giving him a headache, and the world is spinning. Blurring. Again.

"I’m an angel?” there’s a sheepish laugh, and Sousuke tries to blink away the dots of black dancing in the edges of his vision. “Well, I don’t actually have a name yet—“

“Why don’t you have one,” Sousuke asks, or tries to. He isn’t sure if it comes out more than garbled noises, because then everything is getting dark again, and he’s falling down to the endless bottom of the pit.

The next time he wakes up, it’s to the sound of his mother crying, and the doctors fussing around him.

Rin and the angel aren’t there.

** \-----o0o----- **

“I shouldn’t care.” Rin says, frustration lacing each of the word. “I really, really shouldn’t care.”

It’s raining. It’s raining like the pitter-patter of Rin’s tears, shielded away from the world by his bangs. He steps forward, unfolds his wings and spreads them wide, pulling Rin into his arms and shelters them from each drop of water falling from the sky.

Rin’s back, flush against his chest, is tense. “I’ll be sending his soul to Hell.”

He buries his face into the red strands, tastes rainwater in the dampness of Rin’s hair. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s unfair,” Rin grits out. “He’s a good kid.” Rin’s fingers find his arms and clutch on tightly, nails leaving marks against his skin. “I shouldn’t care. I really shouldn’t care, but it’s unfair.”

He smiles sadly.

“You’re always so kind, Rin.”

** \-----o0o----- **

The doctors tell him that he needs to stay in the hospital. Sousuke doesn’t argue, if only for the sake of his mother’s wide, pleading eyes, a silent request for him to  _hold on, please, Sousuke, please, one day longer, please_ .

June ends with a summer rain. Sousuke crosses another date on the calendar and thinks,  _August, next year_ .

July begins with Nanase standing in front of his hospital room, straight-faced as Sousuke has always known him. They stare at each other for a long time, and Nanase steps in with notebooks under his arm.

“I brought your homework,” he tells Sousuke. There’s also a small lunch box in the plastic bag hanging from his hand. When Sousuke opens it, it contains croquettes.

Sousuke takes a bite, then says, “Do you cook anything other than mackerel or croquettes?”

Nanase takes it in stride. “I bake.”

“Huh,” Sousuke says. “You’re unexpectedly domestic.”

The next day, Nanase brings him a box of handmade butter cookies.

** \-----o0o----- **

July sees Nanase in his hospital room almost every other day. July sees an amused Rin sitting at the windowsill as Sousuke argues Math with Nanase and eats various cookies/cake/confectionaries Nanase bakes, and sometimes, more croquettes. July sees Nanase relying news from school and the swimming club to Sousuke, answered with clipped words that ring too bitter in the silent hospital room.

July sees Nanase rising to his feet one evening and saying, “See you tomorrow then, Yamazaki,” and Sousuke answering, “Just Sousuke is fine.”

Nanase pauses, eyes only a fraction wider. And then, ever so slightly, the line of his lips curves upwards; and Sousuke watches in fascination as Nanase gives him a small smile.

“See you tomorrow then, Sousuke.”

The corners of Sousuke’s lips tug up.

“Yeah. See you, Haru.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Rin steals the food Haruka gives Sousuke and saves half of them for the unnamed angel.

“These are very good,” the angel tells Sousuke, eyes bright as he munches on the sweets happily. “You’re very lucky, Yamazaki-kun.”

Sousuke blinks. “Lucky?”

“He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he? Whoever made you these?”

Rin snorts, his chin snugly resting on the angel’s shoulder, their wings a majestic contrast of black and white tangling together. “Only if Sousuke ever dares to make a move.”

Sousuke rolls his eyes, makes a face when the unnamed angel actually feeds Rin the cookie crumbs on his fingers. Gross. “It’s not like that,” he tells them, because it’s really not—even if Haruka ever returns his feelings, it’s not like Sousuke has a future.

It’s meaningless to move, anyway. He only has until the next August. What does it matter, then?

** \-----o0o----- **

A week before the summer vacation starts, when Sousuke is staring out the windows longingly at the ocean and thinking about how good it’d be to go out to swim, Haruka bursts into his hospital room, hair mussed and breath heavy.

Sousuke stares at him. “What are you doing?”

Haruka doesn’t step in. Doesn’t come closer. Instead, he raises one hand and shows Sousuke a piece of paper—registration form, Sousuke recognizes, and something in his stomach lurches.

“I won,” Haruka says, and there’s a hint of pride lacing his voice. “I’m going to the Nationals.”

Sousuke’s mouth falls open, because the registration form says 100 meter freestyle, and he’d thought Haruka didn’t go, he’d thought Haruka refused, he’d thought—“You signed up for the race?”

“100 and 200 meters.” Haruka straightens up, looks at him straight, and something in Sousuke throbs. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll win this, Sousuke.”

Sousuke’s breath catches. In front of his door, Haruka stands, tall and firm, all confidence and determination.

“For you, too.”

\-----o0o-----

“I know him,” Rin says, almost too softly. “I know this boy.”

A finger reaches out, and he watches as it taps against the floating paper, right on the name:  _Nanase Haruka_ .

He turns to Rin, eyes questioning. “You know him? Rin?”

Rin closes his eyes.

“He’s the one who bakes Sousuke things.”

** \-----o0o----- **

The right wing of the last crane is crooked.

Haruka stares at it half in disappointment, wondering if he should just throw the crane to the trash can and fold another one. But then again, it’s almost three in the morning, and tomorrow’s journey will take hours before they even reach the hotel. It’s the Nationals, he figures he needs to rest up whenever he can.

So he strings the crane, along with the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine cranes in the box under his bed, and closes it with a silent hope.

He’ll have a long journey starting tomorrow.

** \----o0o----- **

The one who bakes Sousuke things is someone whose name is Nanase Haruka.

He likes the warmth in each food—croquettes and cookies and chocolates and sweets and bite-sized cakes—obviously made with care and a lot of thoughts. None of them were too sweet or too bitter, none of them were less than perfectly cooked or baked. They speak of great efforts and thoughts, and maybe that’s why they always taste so good.

Nanase Haruka. The one who is currently going for a run on the sidewalk at eleven o’clock at night, having left his hotel room to find a way to deal with the pressure of the Nationals. He spreads his wings and hovers above Haruka as he runs, watches him huff into the night air, and waits as the intersection approaches.

There’s nothing he could do.

The truck from the other side of the road swerves, the driver too drunk to control the vehicle, and Nanase Haruka doesn’t even have the chance to turn around before everything explodes in a deafening noise of tires screeching and heavy metals crunching against one another.

He swallows the bile in his throat, and gracefully sweeps in to take Nanase Haruka’s hand.

** \-----o0o----- **

His head is a splatter of deep red against the sidewalk.

“Don’t look,” someone says—white wings folding all around him, closing him off from the rest of the world: from the wailing siren and the panicked shrieks, from crunched metals and red, red blood. “Please. Listen to me carefully, it’s alright—“

Haruka doesn’t breathe.

Distantly, he realizes he would never breathe again.

\-----o0o-----

“I’m sorry,” Rin tells him.

Standing next to Sousuke’s hospital bed are Nagisa and Rei—their eyes rimmed red and puffy, and Nagisa still hasn’t stopped crying. He’s bunching and twisting Sousuke’s bed sheets in his fists, breath hitching, and Sousuke watches Rei’s hand find Nagisa’s shoulder to squeeze hard, like he’s trying to give Nagisa a strength he doesn’t have.

“You’ll—“ Nagisa hiccups, heaves a breath, and swallows a sob. “You’ll come to the funeral, right, Sou-chan?”

Sousuke stares at the wall. Nagisa breaks into another fit of crying, and Rei is rubbing his eyes furiously.

“I’m sorry,” Rin says, and something in Sousuke  _breaks_ .

** \-----o0o----- **

Haruka doesn’t grow wings, yet, because his shoulders are still sagging heavily with unspoken regret and unwillingness to leave. He doesn’t talk much at all, either, just looks on as the funeral preparation at his house proceeds, as his mother doesn’t stop crying, as his father puts on a strong face and handles various arrangement.

There’s really not much an angel could do in the face of someone who is grieving over their own death.

So he stays, hovers around Haruka, asks Chigusa to take half of his work so he could keep an eye on Haruka. He isn’t sure if Haruka is listening at all, but he talks, about how angels work, about not having a name, about the kinds of people he has to send to the Heaven for today, about demons and how humans have always had this weird ideas about them, about how none of them actually knows where Heaven is, or where God is, or if there really is one. He talks about the pure and innocent souls, about watching white wings sprout out their backs before they fade into the light, and how that would eventually happen to Haruka, too.

Then he talks about Haruka’s croquettes, and the boy turns ever-so-slightly to him.

“Were they really good?”

He smiles, recalling the bursts of flavors in his mouth the first time he bit into the croquette Rin had brought for him. “They were really tasty!”

"Oh,” the set of Haruka’s shoulders relaxes slightly. “That’s… good.” Then Haruka looks up, eyes tracing the edges of his wings, spread wide against the summer sky. “You don’t have a name.”e shakes his head, scratching his head. “None of us angels do. Not at first.”

Haruka nods again, seemingly considering something. Then he says, “Makoto.”

The world stops for a second. “Huh?”

“Makoto.” Haruka turns away again, back towards the house he once lived in. Towards the house where his mother still cries, and his father still tries not to cry. “You’ll be around, right? It’s troublesome if I don’t know what to call you.”

His breath catches, because oh.  _Oh_ .

There’s something that buzzes in his ears, now, and belatedly he realizes that it’s  _excitement_ , tingling down to the tips of his fingers. Warmth bursts and spread in his chest, liquid warm, and the corners of his lips tug up in a helpless sort of smile, both giddy and just utterly happy. He covers it with a hand, tries to clamp down on the sheer happiness because it’s not appropriate, isn’t it, to laugh when Haruka is grieving still, but god,  _god_ —he gets a name, he finally gets a name, he finally has a  _name_ —

Makoto, his lips move in silence, stretched wide in a grin. It’s curious, how easy it feels to pronounce the name. How familiar it feels.  _Makoto_ .

His name.

Haruka glances at him, and to his surprise, the boy’s lips are curving upwards in the slightest of smile.

“Ah!” He shakes his head, fast, embarrassed at his own reaction.  _Inappropriate_ , he reminds himself, and rubs hard at his lips, trying to make himself stop smiling. “I’m—sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just—I’ve always wanted a name, and you gave me one, so—I’m really, really happy!”

Haruka stares at him, almost curious now. “You like it?”

He nods, fast, insistent. “I do! I like it! Thank you so much!”

“Oh,” and yes, that’s unmistakably a smile, curving up Haruka’s lips. “That’s… good.”

Somehow, it feels like there’s an unspoken  _is it that easy to make people happy?_ Hanging in the air, and Makoto— _his name, he has a name!_ —smiles, wide and unrestrained, because Haruka is surprisingly easy to understand.

“Thank you, Haru,” he says, each syllable quiet but firm. “I’m really happy.”

Haruka nods, and doesn’t say anything else.

**\-----o0o-----**

“There you are,” Rin says, sweeping down gracefully in an arc before landing lightly on the branch next to where Makoto stands. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Haruka looks up from a lower branch, eyes widening in surprise at the huge arc of black wings slowly folding against Rin’s back. Makoto grins at him, the last burst of giddiness still bubbling up his throat, and Rin is now looking at him oddly.

“Did..” Rin glances briefly at Haruka, who’s still staring at him, before turning back to Makoto. “I was going to ask if he’s doing okay, but—did something happen?”

Makoto laughs, one arm reaching out to tug Rin closer, and then whispers like it’s the best kept-secret in the world: “Haru gave me a name.”

Rin stiffens. “What?”

“It’s  _Makoto_ .” The corners of his eyes crinkle and his cheeks hurt from grinning too wide, but it’s Rin—Rin who never laughed at his simple dream of getting a name, Rin who never tells him to give up, rin who always tells him that there would be another day. “Rin, I have a name!”

And really, there’s nothing like watching Rin’s face splits apart in a grin, all sharp shark teeth that flashes briefly before Makoto is pulled forward and the distance between them closes in a hard kiss. Makoto loses his breath completely, even as something in his chest leaps both in anticipation and excitement, and Rin is gripping his shoulders so tightly it hurts.

“Makoto,” Rin breathes, and Makoto feels the name against his lips rather than hear it.

** \-----o0o----- **

On the day of his funeral, Rin hovers behind Sousuke, who stands tall among the rest of Haruka’s friends from school.

“Why is he following Sousuke?” Haruka asks, because it’s weird to see a demon floating behind Sousuke’s every step. Even weirder because apparently Sousuke could see and talk to Rin, even if he doesn’t do it much in the midst of the crowds.

Makoto scratches his head. “It’s—a long story,” he admits, not quite sure how to tell Haruka that Sousuke sold his soul to Rin. “But, um. They’re friends?”

Haruka gives him a suspicious look. “Friends.”

Makoto smiles. “Rin is much gentler than he looks.”

“Can Sousuke see you, then?”

“If I let him, yes,” Makoto hesitates, because Haruka’s unspoken question rings clear in the air. He decides to answer, anyway. “He can’t see you, though, Haru. I don’t—“ he falters, wings shifting almost nervously. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea, to let him know that you’re still—around.”

Haruka hums. “I know.”

_Do you really_ , Makoto wonders, because he could see the way Haruka gravitates towards Sousuke, subtle and restrained, and yet inevitable. It’s in the tense of Haruka’s shoulders, in the slightest jerk of Haruka’s head when Sousuke makes his way to Haruka’s family to offer his condolences, in the tightness of his face as his mother holds on to Sousuke’s hand and Sousuke’s face twists just  _so_ .

And then Haruka’s father comes towards Sousuke with a white box sealed tight with tape, and Haruka breathes, “Oh.”

Sousuke takes the box, eyebrows knitted, and Rin turns towards where Makoto and Haruka hovers several feet away, eyes sad.

** \-----o0o----- **

A thousand cranes.

Sousuke barks a bitter laugh. He wants to kick at the box, wants to pull out all the cranes and rip them off the strings, scatter them around his room and step on them one by one. A thousand fucking cranes in different colors, each folded meticulously and carefully, and how ridiculous is it, that Haruka could give him so much without even mentioning anything?

How ridiculous is it, that Sousuke keeps taking and never giving back, without him realizing it?

“Who,” he grits out when Rin settles two steps away before him. “Picked him up?”

Rin closes his eyes. “Makoto did.”

The previously unnamed angel. Rin’s boyfriend. What a joke.

He laughs again, humourless. “Figures I can’t even see him in the afterlife.”

** \-----o0o----- **

“Wow,” Rin says, when Makoto appears with Haruka in tow, in the corner of Sousuke’s room. Said owner of the room is thankfully, blissfully asleep. “You’re resorting to being creepy.”

Haruka cuts him a sharp glare. “You’re one to talk.”

“Now, now,” Makoto sighs. “Be nice, you two.” He named you over  _his dog_ , Makoto,” Rin says, almost incredulous.

“Makko was a great dog,” Haruka counters, completely disregarding Rin as he floats over to where Sousuke sleeps. There’s a crane abandoned just inches away from Sousuke’s fingers, long and bonier than Haruka ever remembered them being. He frowns at them like he could make them look better.

“Did he eat?” Makoto voices the thought in his head out loud. Haruka’s glad the angel is there.

“He didn’t,” Rin replies, concern and frustration clear in his voice. “He came home, opened the box, and got so angry he started laughing at himself. And then he went to sleep.”

“I’ll get him croquettes,” Haruka says, too quietly, and tells himself that he’s not pretending.

** \-----o0o----- **

September passes in a blink of an eye. Sousuke gets out of the hospital and back into school for a few weeks, then in the third week of October, he stumbles out of bed one day only to falls down before he could even reach the door.

“You know,” Rin tells him, half-annoyed and half-frustrated, when Sousuke opens his eyes back to the white walls of the hospital room. “Even if I told you that you have until next year’s August, you could actually die faster if you don’t take care of yourself.”

“Rin,” Makoto hisses, because Haruka is  _there_ , his hand inches away from Sousuke’s bony fingers.

“What,” Rin snaps. “I’m tired of seeing humans being stupid, I don’t want to deal with him being stupid. Haru doesn’t—he wouldn’t want to see Sousuke like this, either.”

Sousuke blinks, almost too slowly. But his eyes are focused on Makoto’s figure, and the first thing he says is: “Why are you always here?”

Makoto pauses, eyes wide. “Yamazaki-kun—“

Sousuke makes a noise. “Whatever,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. “It’s only until next August.”

“I’m going to punch you,” Rin threatens, but he doesn’t follow through because Haruka stands up and blinks himself out of existence, and Makoto makes a surprised yelp. Eyes wide, Rin stares at the now completely empty spot Haruka once was, and looks up to meet Makoto’s scared eyes.

“I’m—“ Makoto says, scrambles away, wings unfolding hastily, spreading white and practically vibrating with tension, and Rin nods at him.

“Go.”

With a rush of wind, Makoto flies off the window.

** \-----o0o----- **

It takes Makoto a good half a day before he could find Haruka.

“I figured it out.” Haruka says, toeing the surface of the pool, watching as his movement doesn’t rouse the clear water. “He’s going to Hell, isn’t he. Sousuke, I mean.”

Makoto’s face falls. “Haru…”

“Rin’s going to take his soul.”

Makoto looks away. “I’m sorry.”

Haruka shrugs, taking another step forward, now standing in the middle of the pool, toes skittering the surface without so much as a ripple. The silence is loud, especially now that the school is completely deserted, having finished all club meetings and academic activities for the day. The sky is rapidly darkening; the last of oranges and reds and yellows streaking across the sky being chased away by the deep dark blue of young night.

“I tried swimming,” Haruka says, and for the first time since Makoto could really talk to him, sounds genuinely sad. “When I dived in, it didn’t feel like anything. The water didn’t even—open.” He pauses, voice breaking ever-so-slightly at the last syllable. “I’m  _dead_ .”

It’s grave, the realization, and Makoto finds himself reaching out despite wanting to give Haruka his space. “Haru—“

Haruka closes his eyes and drops his hands. “Unfair.”

Makoto hates it. Hates the weight of despair that makes Haruka’s shoulders sag, hates the way Haruka’s arms hang limply on both of his sides. He hates that Haruka had to die so young, too—hates to see the grief because it never gets easier, hates to see the anger brewing and exploding before acceptance comes. He hates that Haruka had to die with unsolved regrets, hates that someone like Haruka couldn’t just grow wings and leave for Heaven, where he’s supposed to be happier.

He hates that he can’t do anything about it.

“You know,” he begins, folding his wings and tucking it against his back, before falling to Haruka’s side. “I never know where Heaven is. I don’t know where God is, either.” He pauses, offers a small, sheepish grin. “I don’t even know if there really is one.”

Haruka stares at him.

“But there has to be a reason that I’m here, right?” He smiles. “Me, and Rin, too. There has to be a reason why we meet both you and Sousuke, even if it’s unfair. And I might be awful for saying this, Haru, but I don’t regret having to pick you up, when you died.” Makoto pauses, eyes softening. “Though, I guess Haru might have regretted it.”

Haruka is silent, contemplative for a long time. “I don’t,” he says in the end, head shaking slowly. “I don’t regret—not over my death. I’m—sad, about it, but I don’t.”

There’s an unspoken  _if it’s time, then it’s time, and there’s nothing I could do about it_ hanging in the air. Makoto smiles. “Just over the things you couldn’t do?” He reaches out, takes Haruka’s hand and squeezes reassuringly. “You still don’t know what it is, do you, Haru? But that’s okay. I’ll help you figure it out.”

Haruka meets his eyes. “Makoto..” And then we can solve it together. Rin wouldn’t mind helping, too,” Makoto pats Haruka’s shoulder. “You’ll have your wings, then, when you’re ready to go. They’re like mine—they’d be huge and white, and they’ll give you a miracle.”

It sounds like an empty promise, like fairy tales told by mothers to their children before they sleep. Haruka hangs his head for a moment, shoulders sagging like he’s giving up, except then his hands squeezes Makoto’s back, and there’s a new determination in his eyes when he looks back up.

“I think,” he says, “I want to watch over him.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Sousuke doesn’t get better.

Makoto watches Haruka’s frown gets deeper and deeper each day, as Sousuke eats less and less of the food the nurses brought for him. Rin tells him to eat more, to drink his medicine properly, to do the homework that Rei brought to the hospital from time to time, and Sousuke looks at Rin in the way the nothing actually matters, and Rin gets angry. Angrier, whenever Sousuke counters with the words  _“next August,”_ which in turn makes Haruka frown even harder.

“Fine,” Rin bites out one cold night in November, throwing his hands up. “Whatever. Waste your life, Sousuke, nobody cares. Next August, next year, tomorrow, it doesn’t make any difference, you’ll die anyway.” And with that, black wings spread almost violently, and Rin disappears out the window with a rush of wind.

Makoto hesitantly glances at Haruka, who is looking down at one of the cranes scattered on Sousuke’s bedside table. One of them has a crooked wing. “Haru…”

“I’ll stay right here,” Haruka says vaguely.

Makoto sighs, gives a nod, and leaves.

** \-----o0o----- **

Rin hates that it was him who got summoned. He hates that he cares too much, too. He shouldn’t, because Sousuke’s sold his soul, and Rin is going to send him to Heaven once he dies, anyway, but god, Rin doesn’t even want him to die.

His fellow demons call him soft; Seijuurou once teases him about getting misty-eyed at a prostitute he had to send to Hell. But that’s that, and this is different. This is Sousuke, who demanded to know when he’d die in exchange for his soul, Sousuke who tried his best to live normal before he collapsed completely. Stubborn Sousuke, who gradually wins a place in Rin’s heart for his smirk and simply being a smartass. Sousuke, who is now giving up, because he doesn’t have anyone to remind him to fight.

Rin hates that he can’t break through Sousuke’s stubbornness, like this.

Something touches his wrist—fingers—and Rin flinches, except the fingers slide down to find his own fingers, familiar and belonged, and Rin lets himself being turned, lets himself being pulled into a hug. White wings curve forward, the tips grazing Rin’s own black wings, gently coaxing it to fold back.

“Rin,” Makoto says, voice muffled into Rin’s hair. “Don’t be so angry.” in takes a deep breath.

“This is what it feels like, having a kid,” he complains, and feels the Makoto’s whole body shakes as he laughs.

** \-----o0o----- **

December, and two days before Christmas, Sousuke is scheduled for an operation.

He takes a crane out of the box, traces the sharp edges of the folds, and wonders what’s the point.

** \-----o0o------ **

Rin presses against Makoto’s side, when the nurses wheel Sousuke’s bed away and into the operation room.

“He’s not going to make it,” he murmurs. “He doesn’t even want to fight.”

Makoto’s face falls. “Don’t say that,” he says, but the words hold no conviction, either. Haruka watches them from the corner of his eyes, and thinks fondly, what ridiculous pair.

“He’ll make it,” Haruka says, because Sousuke will. There’s simply no other choice. August is still a good eight months away, and Sousuke doesn’t get to run away. Not when Haruka didn’t get to, either. “He’ll fight.”

Rin and Makoto exchange glances. “Haru?”

“He’ll fight,” Haru repeats, staring hard at the crane with the crooked wing on the bedside table.

“He will.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Through the windows, in the midst of a flurry of doctors, Sousuke’s skin grows paler.

The heartbeat monitor skips and skips and skips, uneven blips that sounds deafening in the operation room. Orders thrown, a semblance of calm as the tension grows, as quiet panic starts lacing each word that comes out of the surgeons’ mouth. Haruka stays silent, listens to the words he could barely understand: respiratory failure, decreasing heartrate, defibrillator settings—

It used to be easier, with Sousuke. It used to be silent lunches and resignation over the fact that they’re both weird people. It used to be silent respect of each other’s swimming talents, and a few words exchanged here or there about practices. They’re both stubborn people, Haruka knows, which doesn’t make it easy for them to work together, but somehow things just fall the way it is, and here he is now, dead and still lingering in the mortal world.

All because he regrets not being able to tell Sousuke to fight.

“Really,” he deadpans. “Stop being such a kid.”

And then he feels it, the weight of wings, sprouting out his back and unfolding with a force that nearly makes him stumble forward. On the other side of the room, he hears Makoto calls out in surprise, and Haruka spares a moment to turn to Makoto and Rin, who are looking at him with wide eyes.

Oh, Haruka thinks. He understands now.

This is the reason he stays behind.

“You’re really troublesome, Sousuke,” Haruka sighs, and thinks of the last crane he’d folded on the night before he left for the Nationals. He thinks of each one of those cranes, thinks of origami papers bending delicately under his fingers, thinks of the smell of ink that clings to his wrist as he writes his wish on each paper, folding them with the utmost care. He thinks of the last crane with the crooked wings, thinks of Sousuke who backed off the butterfly race but got irritated when Haruka refused to sign up for the freestyle race.

It’s bright. He lets his wings bring him up and forward, hovering above where Sousuke is lying, ignoring the shocked looks and shouts from surgeons and nurses and others whose name Haruka never learns but are trying to save Sousuke’s lives. He sweeps down and reaches out, the tip of his finger resting on Sousuke’s forehead.

“Haru!” Makoto’s voice. Rin’s, too. “Don’t—please!”

A wings like an angel’s. A miracle, in exchange for their life.

But this is why he stays behind.

“Fight!” Haruka shouts, almost desperately. “Sousuke!!”

A blinding white light engulfes everything, and Haruka pushes himself forward for the last time, watches as the tips of his fingers fade, and lets himself smile as he rests his forehead against Sousuke’s own.

A thousand cranes, he thinks. That should be enough.

He presses his lips against Sousuke’s, and everything else fades away.

** \-----o0o----- **

Paper cranes scatter through the air, floating down the way snowflakes are outside.

Doctors and nurses stand, mouths agape and eyes wide, as the bright light fades completely and paper cranes rain down out of nowhere, tumbling down onto the pristine white floor silently. Someone breathes shakily, and someone else forgets to breathe, because miracles just don’t happen in front of your eyes, do they?

But the heart monitor is beeping steadily.

** \-----o0o----- **

Makoto bends down, trembling fingers plucking one lone paper crane from the floor.

“Haru,” he chokes out, voice breaking completely, and Rin moves forward, covers Makoto’s hand with his own, trapping the paper crane inside, and presses their hand against his forehead.

“It’s okay, Makoto,” his breath catches, and Rin belatedly realizes that he’s crying. “It’s okay.”

** \-----o0o------ **

When Sousuke finally wakes up, it’s four days into the new year.

His mother cries and doesn’t stop for another hour. His father just holds his hand, tight, before excusing himself out of the room and doesn’t come back until his mother looks for him. Sousuke isn’t sure why, but one of the nurses smiles at him like she’s a proud mother, and says, “You’re a miracle, Yamazaki-san.”

Rin is there, too, still, always with Makoto, who smiles wetly at Sousuke when he greets him. Sousuke lets Rin jostle his side, because he’s feeling much better, somehow, much brighter, even if he doesn’t understand why.  Except then Rin drops one of the paper cranes onto his lap and Makoto settles to sit on the edge of his bed, and Sousuke looks at them curiously.

“Feeling much better?” Rin says, eyebrows raising. Sousuke turns back to the paper crane, tries to smooth the crooked wing in vain.

“It feels like,” he begins, uncertainly. “I had a dream.” He pauses, then closes his eyes because it still hurts, when he thinks of Haruka. “I dreamt of Haru, I think. He said that I’m troublesome.” Oddly, the memory tugs the corners of his lips upwards. “He told me to fight.”

Another paper crane is dropped onto his lap. And then another. And another. Sousuke blinks, surprised, and looks up as both Makoto and Rin drop more paper cranes. “What are you doing?”

“You are an idiot,” Rin tells him. “Unfold them.”

“What.”

“Yamazaki-kun,” Makoto says, and Sousuke thinks Makoto might be crying. Again. “Please open them. Haru put so much effort into them.”

  
There’s a sense akin to dread, or perhaps anticipation, as Sousuke hesitantly reaches out to take a paper crane amongst so many in his lap. The tips of his fingers tremble, when he tugs at the folds, slowly pulling them apart, opening the complicated layers and returning the paper back to its original square form.

On the paper, in Haruka’s neat handwriting, is three short words of  _Don’t give up_ .

Sousuke takes a sharp breath. “What—“

He drops the paper and snatches another paper crane, this time tugging at the folds in a hurry. The paper opens easily under his fingers, revealing more of Haruka’s handwriting, neat and tiny and thin, forming the words,  _Don’t be so lazy and make me bring your work every other day_ .

_Do you even like the croquettes I made?_

_Get better already._

_Stop being such a lazyass._

_Everyone in the club misses you._

An odd sound tears through his throat, and Sousuke clasp a hand over his mouth, tasting salt. Tears fall on the paper he’s holding, one that says  _You’ve been really strong, Sousuke_ , and he closes his eyes, remembers silent lunches and random croquettes and baked goods, remembers evenings spent doing school work and half-hearted discussions about swimming, remembers the determination in Haruka’s eyes when he opens Sousuke’s door with a registration form, remembers  _Nationals_ and  _I’ll win_ and  _for you, too, Sousuke._

It’s ridiculous, that Haruka has everything and Sousuke doesn’t, that Haruka gives and gives and Sousuke doesn’t.

“Yamazaki-kun,” Makoto says, and Sousuke starts when the angel’s hand finds his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Would you listen to us, for a while?”

** \-----o0o----- **

In the beginning of April, Sousuke makes his first step back into the school grounds.

Rin floats behind him all the way through the hall and into the class, where Sousuke now has to sit with those who used to be his underclassmen, and says, “Cool, you get to sit next to the window, I can watch the sakura blooms.”

“If you make out with Makoto on the sakura tree, Rin, I swear to God,” Sousuke says, but he doen’t finish because Nagisa, Rei and Momo burst into his class and barrel into him, all loud and bright like the sunshine and the clean squeaks of shoes, and Rin just pointedly laughs at him.

** \-----o0o----- **

He gets back into club. He signs up for the butterfly race, and trains like he never does before.

He collapses once at the end of May, but bounces back quick because the Prefecturals is coming up fast. His time shoots up, and his couch looks happy if a bit concerned at how thin he is now, if it isn’t for his muscles. Sousuke grins, though, because all things considered, he’s doing great. He takes a marker every morning and crosses out a day with a smile, and thinks the last week of August.

He sets out to win, for the last time.

** \-----o0o----- **

He doesn’t get the gold.

But that’s okay. That’s okay, because he fought, and that’s what Haruka told him to do, that’s what Haruka tried to do for him. He surfaces to see Rin and Makoto hovering on the starting block, faces red as they shout at him to swim faster, harder, and Sousuke wants to laugh because he thinks Haruka wouldn’t shout if he’s here. He’d probably just call Sousuke an idiot, and that’s that.

He gets silver. He puts it in the box with the paper cranes, and brings them to Haruka’s grave with Rin and Makoto as the last week of August rolls around.

He isn’t even surprised when he doesn’t make it back home.

** \-----o0o----- **

“The last week of August,” Sousuke mimes, and Rin smacks him gently on the head.

“Rin,” Makoto protests, taking Rin’s hand away and folding his own over it. Sousuke snorts at how gross the two are. “Stop antagonizing Rin, Sousuke.”

He laughs, even though it’s getting harder to catch his breath. “He was making a weird face.”

“I was worried,” Rin complains, exasperated. “I’m getting you a mirror, you can see for yourself how pale you look—Sousuke? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” but the word comes out in a weak huff. “Just.” Hard to breathe. The world is spinning too fast, and he can’t focus on either Rin or Makoto. He should push the emergency button, should call the nurses. “One sec.”

“That’s not okay,” Makoto says, and Sousuke wants to laugh at how terrified he sounds. “Here, Sousuke, push the button.”

He wants to. He wants to, but he doesn’t have the energy.

“Sousuke,” Rin’s voice, edges sharp. “Push it.”

“Trying to,” Sousuke counters, but it comes out as a garbled of noise. Honestly though, why would an angel and a demon get scared over a human dying, when they seeing people die is their job every single day? “Can’t—“

Rin’s face, pale and panicked, swims into view, and Sousuke really laughs this time.

“Why the face,” he breathes out. “You’re gonna take my soul anyway, idiot.”

Somehow, he manages to push the button, and the last thing he hears is the sounds of running steps coming closer, before he falls back into darkness.

** \-----o0o----- **

When he opens his eyes again, he’s standing.

“The last week of August,” he hears Rin say, and he turns. Rin smiles sadly at him, Makoto on his side and a piece of paper floating on his other side , which then disappear with a light wave of Rin’s hand. “Yamazaki Sousuke.”

There’s an odd, empty sensation as realization comes crashing down. Sousuke turns around again, takes in the fact that yes, he’s floating, and he looks down to the heads of doctors and nurses, and a body covered in white blanket. “Oh,” he says, “I’m dead.”

Rin smacks the back of his head. “Don’t say it so lightly, you bastard. We were so worried.”

“Yeah, well.” There’s really nothing he could say to that. It’s time, after all, so there’s nothing he could do about it. “So anyway, you’re sending me to Hell, right?”

Rin grins. “Nah. Your name’s not on my list.”

Sousuke blinks. “What?” He turns to Makoto, who just smiles his usual smile at him. “ _You’re_ sending me to Heaven?”

Makoto grins too, and Sousuke makes a mental note that these two are eerie if they ever grin together, side by side. “No, you’re name isn’t on my list, either.”

“I thought one of you is supposed to be waiting and ready by the time the soul leaves the body,” Sousuke tilts his head, gestures down to where his body still lies on the bed. “This is admittedly a bit creepy. Is my demon or angel slacking off, or what?”

“Rude,” another voice, so familiar and missed, and Sousuke whirls around in shock. “I don’t slack off.”

Huge white wings, arcing wide as they spread like a canopy in the hospital room, sending feathers floating down. Dark hair a contrast to the pure white wings, and eyes the color of deep blue, clear as water. The angel sweeps down, face impassive, gracefully hovering before Sousuke. “Yamazaki Sousuke, eighteen years old. Your circumstances is unusual, but your name is on my list.”

Sousuke gapes. Then he turns around only to find both Rin and Makoto, mouths open and eyes wide as well, and he does another double take. “What?”

“Wait,” Rin splutters. “What?!” He turns to Makoto, who shakes his head vigorously. “Wait, none of us knew about this?”

Sousuke turns back to the angel, dark hair ruffled by the wind, still in disbelief. “Haru..ka?”

The angel blinks slowly, and blandly says, “Are you giving me a name?”

“Oh my god,” Rin chokes out, and Makoto makes a strangled noise.                                                                       

The angel sighs, a light huff of air that’s so familiar it tugs at Sousuke’s heartstring. “You’re wasting my time.” And with that, he extends one hand towards Sousuke. “Are you coming or not?”

“Wasting your time,” Sousuke repeats, deadpan. “What, do you soak up above the clouds?”

The angel—Haruka, Sousuke’s mind supplies, which is weird, because apparently he just named an angel—rolls his eyes. “If you knew already, then  _move_ .”

And Sousuke is so done. The world, he thinks, as laughter bubbles up his throat and rings clear in the canopy of three huge wings around him, is both unfair and amazing, and of course, a fucking tease. Maybe he should go and seek out an audience with God, because everything about this is hilarious and he really isn’t sure how to react, except Haruka is glaring at him again, and well, there’s nothing Sousuke could do now, is there?

Haruka is his angel, after all.

So he throws one last grin at Rin and Makoto and raises a hand in farewell, before taking Haruka’s hand and follows the light.

** \-----o0o----- **

“Where do you think Heaven is?” Makoto murmurs, and Rin laughs.

“I don’t think it matters at all,” he says, knocking the side of his head against Makoto’s and tightening their joined hands. “God probably doesn’t know where it is.”

Makoto hums. “If there’s even one.” His breath falls on Rin’s cheek, and Rin tilts his head, following it. “I’m probably not supposed to say that.”

Rin grins. “You’re an angel. Be pure, Makoto.”

Makoto shrugs, laughter spilling off his lips like scattered wish. “I haven’t been for a long time, anyway.”

Rin closes the gap between their lips, and silently offers up his thanks to God.

** \------o0o----- **

**Author's Note:**

> A happy ending of some sort. /looks away
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY WAIFU THANK YOU FOR BEING BORN.


End file.
